Hey, bloggers? Journalists? Want young, hip, happening? Want give-and-take? Want a guy who is one of you? Presidential candidate Barack Obama isn’t that into you:
ABC News’ Sunlen Miller reports: Barack Obama came to the press part of the plane for the first time since the airing of the now infamous “Saturday Night Live” last weekend featuring a parody of himself and Sen. Hillary Clinton. . .
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The senator shook a few print reporters’ hands – told a few bloggers he doesn’t read blogs – and then headed to the back of the plane – a part he dubbed “the fun part of the plane” – where the photographers sit.
An Obama staffer quickly ushered the candidate back to his portion of the plane as it was time to land – and before any more questions, or pillows, came his way.
H/T While Obama may not be as tight-lipped and pre-programmed as Hillary, he’s not exactly the most engaged when it comes to standing in the batters’ box for the tough questions that come from the back and forth with reporters and bloggers, much unlike John McCain, famous for holding court for hours on end with reporters at the back of the “Straight Talk Express.” McCain, of course, holds regular calls with bloggers, and has been doing so since the middle of last year. And yes, the old dog understands the new tricks:
Q: [After a monologue on the importance of emerging technology] Can you tell the difference and YouTube and MySpace?
McCain: MySpace is social network that people can focused on social networking and establishing relationships . . . YouTube carries various videos. It includes anything that has ever been embarrassing to someone. Senator Edwards attests to that. I can attest to that.
Basic stuff, but the serious point here being that young voters tend to associate youth with pop culture savvy and age with a lack of verbal and mental agility – but for all of Obama’s image as the Voice of the Future and all his windy, oracular pronouncements, it’s McCain who is more at home handling contentious questioners and dorm-room bull sessions, and it may well be McCain who is actually (relatively) more in touch with the culture of college-age kids, since he has kids of his own that age (Obama’s daughters are very young, and anyone who has small children can tell you that you lose touch with popular culture in a hurry when you are racing after small children).
But don’t worry. Obama’s still happy to take the money that’s raised for him online.
This is precisely the problem I have with McCain; he’s thowing his base support like Cunningham under the bus and trying to play to the middle, getting all trendy by learning about MySpace and the like. As a long time Republican I absolutely refuse to vote for him in the General; he has some nerve inviting the guy to his function, having the guy work the audience into a frenzy for him, then being all kissy faced to Obama and distancing himself from a true conservative. McCain isnt conservative, he isnt liberal, he isnt a maverick, he isnt independent, he’s an opportunist who adopts whatever position is trendy at the time in order to maintain his popularity…i.e, he is interested in his own power. It’s almost better if a Republican doesnt win now anyway because its likely to be a one-term thing with the economy bad. Better not to sell our soul about what our party is about just to get booted out in 4 yrs.
It’s almost better if a Republican doesn’t win now anyway because the short attention-spanned citizenry will probably forget it was the Republicans who screwed things up this badly by the time 2012 rolls around.
Crank, your Obama attack pieces get sillier by the minute. I can only imagine what you’ll be saying come October. He has a toothy smile? He’s too tall? He eats the wrong breakfast cereal?
Why won’t you just come out and say it clean: you’ll support the GOP candidate over the Dem no matter what. Period. The ghost of George Washington could rise from the grave, join the Democratic party, run for President, and you’d still support whatever GOPer talked up the War in Iraq and an anti-abortion stance.
Your convoluted “reasons” to speak out against Obama stretch credulity to the limit.
Didn’t we go down this path already?